Anzac Day (Salute )

[Hedgehog]

Today is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, the day that Australia and New Zealand commemorate the fallen. Please take a moment out of your day to remember the ANZAC fallen.

ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, and ANZAC Day is commemorated by wearing poppies every year on the 25th April, the date that Australia and New Zealand entered World War One. A particularly poignant year this year as 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. Thank you. Lest We Forget.
The music is Abide With Me and The Last Post played by HM Royal Marines.

 

[Badger73]

To absent comrades.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
We mourn for our dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

- Laurence Binyon in 1914
(edited Stanza One)

 

[Facman]

SALUTE!